Public divided on viral video of #SansSouci teacher slapping pupil

While pupils at Sans Souci Girls’ High School in Newlands, Cape Town, have backed the teacher who was caught on camera slapping a pupil during a heated confrontation, the rest of the public is extremely divided.

A video doing the rounds on social media shows the teacher engaged in an argument with the pupil. The teacher can be heard admonishing the girl for having her cellphone at school in contravention of the school’s code of conduct.

In the clip, which is about one-and-a-half minutes long, the rest of the class looks on helplessly as the pupil repeatedly backchats the teacher who appears to grow more and more agitated.

During the incident, which reportedly happened on Tuesday, the girl accuses the teacher of swearing at her and this appears to escalate their confrontation.

When the teacher confiscates the pupil’s cellphone the girl pushes past her to take to phone from the teacher’s table. At this point, the teacher becomes visibly overwrought and slaps the girl, to the horror of her classmates.
The video has been viewed over 200 000 times on Facebook alone.

Claudine Botha: “I support this teacher. That disrespectful girl should be grateful all she got was a slap. When she gets home her mother should dish out another one.”

Evelyn Swarts: “No behaviour on either side was right!”

Bulelwa Mrasi: “Our kids are becoming ungovernable serious.”

Denise Thompson Schmidt: “What is wrong with students. Where is the respect. When we even rolled our eyes at our teachers the girls where hit on the bum with a slipper and the boys got the cane!”

Zolani Newu: “Slapping a child at school it’s illegal you can say whatever.”

Fatima Rawoot: “Clearly this started in an undisciplined manner in which the teacher reprimands and provokes further now really now i know all adults r stuck with youth issues but we have to be very cautious on not taking our personal stress levels out on them shes definitely not fit to be an educator from a mom of many.”